Disability Discrimination Lawyer - Defend Your Right to Work

Discrimination can take many forms, including:

• Hiring/Firing: Refusing to hire or firing someone because of their disability or medical history.
• Pay/Promotions: Paying a disabled employee less or passing them over for promotions.
• Job Assignments: Giving a disabled employee less desirable tasks or isolating them from the team.
• Benefits: Denying health insurance or other benefits available to coworkers in similar roles.
• Medical leave: Punishing you for taking leave tied to a disability when you could still perform essential job functions with accommodation.

When termination follows a disability disclosure or accommodation request, the case often overlaps with a workplace retaliation claim if the employer punished protected activity.

Under the ADA, employers must provide reasonable accommodations to help you do your job, unless they can prove undue hardship. That duty usually requires an interactive process — a good-faith discussion about what you need and what alternatives might work. Examples include:

• Making facilities accessible (ramps, restrooms).
• Modifying work schedules or allowing part-time work.
• Acquiring or modifying equipment (screen readers, ergonomic chairs).
• Allowing unpaid leave for medical treatment or recovery.

If you requested an accommodation and were ignored, delayed, or fired, you may have both a failure-to-accommodate claim and a broader disability discrimination case.

Before suing in federal court, you generally must file a Charge of Discrimination with the EEOC. In most states the filing deadline is 180 days from the discriminatory act. Where a state or local agency also enforces disability discrimination laws, that window is often 300 days.

After the EEOC issues a Notice of Right to Sue, you typically have only 90 days to file a federal lawsuit. A disability discrimination lawyer tracks these deadlines while building your damages story — lost wages, emotional harm, and whether reinstatement is realistic.

Our EEOC process guide walks through each stage from charge to litigation.

If you win your disability discrimination case, remedies may include:

• Back pay: Wages and benefits you lost because of the discrimination.
• Front pay: Future wages if reinstatement is not practical.
• Compensatory damages: For emotional distress, inconvenience, and related harm.
• Punitive damages: When the employer acted with malice or reckless indifference.
• Attorney's fees: The employer may have to pay your legal costs if you prevail.

For covered employers with 15 or more employees, combined compensatory and punitive damages are capped under 42 U.S.C. § 1981a — from $50,000 (15–100 employees) up to $300,000 (more than 500 employees). Back pay and front pay are not subject to those caps.

Many clients come to us after what feels like a sudden, unexplained firing right after a diagnosis, FMLA leave, or accommodation request. Timing alone does not prove a case, but close timing between protected activity and adverse action is powerful evidence.

We review personnel files, accommodation emails, medical restrictions, and comparator treatment of coworkers without disabilities. If the employer's stated reason keeps changing, that inconsistency can support both disability discrimination and retaliation theories.

Document everything now — termination letters, performance reviews, doctor's notes, and internal emails — then request a free case review so we can evaluate your employment law claims before a deadline expires.